Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

It looks like the IronPigs will be getting some starting pitching help for the stretch drive of the International League playoff drive.

The Phillies signed veteran right-hander Dave Bush to a minor-lea;gue contract, and if the Berwyn native passes his physical, he's expected to join the IronPigs later this week.

Bush began the year with Texas, where he was 01 with a 5.79 ERA in 17 appearances before beging designated for assignemt and released in July. He was 1-2 with a 6.14 ERA in five starts at Triple-A Iowa (Chicago Cubs) before opting out of his contract last Thursday.

Bush is 56-69 with a 4.70 ERA over eight major league seasons including a pair of 12-win seasons for Milwaukee in 2006 and 2007. He also beat the Phillies in the 2008 NL Division Seriies.

The 31-year-old was Toronto's second-round pick in 2002 out of Wake Forest but was traded to Milwaukee after the 2005 season in a deal that brought Lyle Overbay to Toronto..